I checked with infoserv to dig up some information on the ages of delegates to General Conference 2012 as compared to the entire denomination. Thank you to the wonderful team at Ask InfoServ for their data gathering!
There is no official United Methodist source for age statistics for the denomination. GCFA has not collected age statistics since General Council on Ministries.
Hmm. So, most votes split 60/40. And the 45 to 64 age group is 64.4%. Hmm.
So, under 44 is 24% of attendees and 17.7% of delegates. Under-representation of 6.3%. Let’s not ask the question of how many newly minted UMs or people new to a conference after moving would we expect to be elected to General Conference.
For 65 and over, they are 39% of attendees but only 17.8% of delegates. That is an under-representation of 21.2%!! So, while US members of non-European descent were dramatically OVER-represented compared to their percentages of clergy and laity, but General Conference is ageist!!
Will we move away from making decisions based on where people are from or what they look like to instead make decisions based on merit???
I too noticed that the older members were under represented and think it is unfair. However, when deciding things on “merit,” it seems to end up looking only one way. Merit seems to end up looking a lot like the face in the mirror.
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. Part of our problem right now is that we can’t agree on facts and some people hold their opinions no matter what. An “idolatry of the young” doesn’t help the church nor the young.
Well, all that was presented was facts. An idolatry of the middle-aged (of which I am) doesn’t help at all either. Perhaps a step back to see that all that was presented were statistics and a wondering observation…no conclusions, no strident opinions…might be in order.
So the folks in the age group just below me (I am 65) and yet older than my oldest child seem to have decided things against all the other age groups combined. I seem to take positions more like those of my Gen X children’s ages!